Here’s an example of a fashion video that looks hot without making an attempt at being controversial, philosophical, or pornographic (unlike the YSL video by Bruce Weber that I recently trashed.) It just looks hot, its only 30 seconds long, and it helps that we all love Lara Stone.

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This is a little project some friends and I have been working on, you can get them on Nazreens Designs stall at Portobello West this weekend. I think the follow up should be YSL’s Opium, Jean Paul Gaultier’s Classique Perfume, and Marc Jacob’s Daisy, but we are open to ideas!

The candle is made with real designer perfume.

www.yasminebjornson.com

Dear Holts,

I went to your perfume counter yesterday. As expected, the service was spectacular, the guy who served me was super nice and helpful. But I have to say, I am not very impressed about how you displayed your perfumes.

Luxury perfumes are expensive (not inaccessible, but I still think $100 for a 50ml bottle is not exactly a bargain) yet you display the perfumes like they would in a dollar store. Your perfume counter had at least a hundred and fifty perfume bottles on it, and I don’t think that is a very good way to merchandise luxury perfumes. You want to feel special when you are buying something from a luxury brand, and I didn’t feel special when I picked out one bottle from a bin of 50 and handed over my credit card.

Come on Holts!

At an average of 80 dollars a bottle, this bin holds over $3500 dollars of perfume. hmmm...

You can't even properly appreciate the bottle design when they are all shoved in there!

It's just too much!

My friend Asa, a makeup artist living in Stockholm, recommended YSL’s Volume Effect Faux Cils mascara. It was a very good recommendation, as the mascare really is fantastic. But the thing I love about it most? It smells nice. How many luxury cosmetics actually scent their prodcts to make them smell good? I know its probably all chemicals, which undos my strict Dr Hauschka routine, but there is something very nice about putting on mascara with a pretty smell (by the way, this is a classy smell, not some cheap strawberry flavour) I have never noticed this before with any of my other luxury cosmetics, but I really feel it is these sort of touches that makes it worth paying those extra dollars.

And it makes a really nice click sound when you close the tube, another interesting element in luxury cosmetics: the engineering of the packaging. I remember reading that Guerlain used to make their lipstick tubes so that when you clicked them closed it made the same sound as a Rolls Royce door closing.

Speaking of scents, I’m embarrassed to admit it, but for the past 15 years I have been wearing Prescriptives Calyx perfume, and I need to take some action. Presciptives is closing down at the end of the year, and I need to decide whether to bulk buy Calyx or to move on. I really love Diptyque’s Fig scent (so predictable I know!), Korres has something similar (a body mist I think.) I need to go on a perfume buying mission, that should be interesting. Maybe I will wait until I get to London in March, Liberty’s has the most fantastic perfume department.

Definitely time to move on: Prescriptives' Calyx Perfume, Diptyque's Fig Candle, Korres' Fig Body MIst